Long-time Pilsen artist Diana Solís is publishing a photo book, Luz: Seeing the Space Between Us, marking her return to photography after 2 decades. New portraits of Solís’ home & community, along with reproductions of her archival photos, will appear in the book which will be published by Flatlands Press and launched on September 24 of this year at the National Museum of Mexican Art. This project was made possible by 3Arts and donors to the 3Arts Project (3AP). In the forward to the book, photography writer and art historian Deanna Ledezma (Ph.D., Art History, UIC) writes, “The bilingual title Luz: Seeing the Space Between Us evokes light (or luz in Spanish) in multiple forms. For Solís, whose practice began with analog photography, the word will always be associated with how a photograph, at its origins, is a record of light emanating onto light-sensitive material. [It] can also be interpreted as a project brought into being by a longing for lightness during the pandemic and a wish to reconnect with communities temporarily disassembled.” In her introduction, Solís says that “these portraits became moments of reemergence for those of us in Pilsen. By coming together with friends and community members in this way, I called on the sensibilities I have developed as a teaching artist working with youth and adults in classroom and community settings since 1979.” Diana Solís is a Mexican-born visual artist, photographer, and educator whose work includes painting, illustration, printmaking, comics, public murals, and installation. She is inspired by Mexican and Chicano culture, memory, cautionary tales, oral and personal histories, queer identities, and narratives. It was the 70’s at Casa Aztlan Solís and as part of Mujeres Latinas en Accion (MLEA) that Solís got her start as an artist and as a teaching artist who is committed to sharing her knowledge and process in collaboration with youth, immigrant families, and adults and supporting them to create art from their perspectives.
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